Russian Syrian War Expenditures Said to Top $800 Billion

In an exclusive contextual analysis of World Bank economic figures, it has been determined that Russia has expended in excess of $800 Billion US dollars in the war in Syria. Russia, whose involvement in the war, if the numbers are to be believed, goes back to at least 2011, and recently required them to Sell a Large Stake in Gazprom to a Mystery Buyer. All this comes at a time where the battle for Aleppo has forced Russia, and Syria, to expend vast sums of money against battle hardened rebel groups supported by the United States.

The numbers which paint a story that was mostly intact through the narrative in the media reveals that during the year 2011, shortly after the Arab spring protest erupted in Syria, and turned violent, the Syrian government was vouchsafed a sum totaling in excess of $105 Billion US dollars to put down the protest. In the following year, 2012 — when the protest had by then morphed into a civil war, the sum is increased by 77% with a lump sum, or added value injection of currency equal to $136 Billion US dollars. The amounts from their begin to vary radically from year to year with an estimated $224 Billion being expended in 2013, $901 million in 2014, before the amounts multiply again, coinciding with the stepped up presence of Russia in Syria, topping out at $322 Billion in 2015 before again bottoming out in 2016 where an estimated $935 Million was actually taken from Syria’s coffers. If the numbers are to be believed the astronomical price which the Russian’s paid to keep Assad in power comes in at a cool $809 Billion Dollars.

For all of this it seems that the Russians may have, or could recoup almost all of the money by the aforementioned sale of a stake in Gazprom, a Russian company which keeps notoriously opaque books. If this is true it would put the Russian governments finances back on steady ground, though at the expense of relinquishing control of one of the glittering crown jewels in the governments business portfolio. As for Assad, and Syria its estimated through the numbers released by the World Bank that Syria owes to short term debtors in excess of $1 trillion US dollars, with Assad personally owing at least 10% of that or $100 billion. The future of Syria after a war which has displaced 2 million people and which has killed untold scores more is still up in the air.

The current atmosphere in the world is one of mistrust as two of the worlds biggest countries, the United States, and Russia, squared off fighting a proxy war between each other in Syria which has left many wondering what is next.